The Day I Saw Mandela

posted Dec 20, 2013, 8:21 AM by The Tibetan Political Review

By Jamyang Norbu

Just four months after he was released from Robben Island, Nelson Mandela
came to Boston – the first stop in his nine-city US tour. It was
probably his way of thanking Boston for being the first US city take a
stand against apartheid, which it and the state of Massachusetts had
earlier done, against the prevailing wind of American politics then.

I was in Boston at the end of a speaking tour put together by my friend the scholar Warren Smith (author of Tibetan Nation
and other insightful tomes on the Tibet issue). Just a year earlier, in
June 1989, the Tienanmen Massacre had shaken the world and Warren felt
it was an opportune moment to educate the American public on the Tibetan
issue. But the “Tibet Movement” though at the peak of its popularity,
power and influence had become somewhat discombobulated following His
Holiness’s “Strasbourg” address giving up Tibetan independence.
Nonetheless, the few small Tibetan communities in North America and inji
friends welcomed Lhasang Tsering la and myself when we rolled into
their town or university in Warren’s old Chrysler station wagon (one
cylinder malfunctioning).

But to get back to my main story. Mandela spoke at the Esplanade by the
Boston River where a reported 250,000 people had gathered. Edward
Kennedy, Governor William Weld and other eminent Bostonians were on the
stage besides him. Oddly enough, I don’t recall what Mandela said but I
clearly remember his infectious smile and the unusual tonal quality and
cadence of his accent. But more than anything I’ve never forgotten the
extraordinary, even profound collective emotion that took hold of us in
the crowd that day. I thought “So this is how its going to be when
Tibet becomes free and His Holiness returns home. This is how its going
to feel” I have mentioned this memorable experience in a few of public
talks. Nobody’s laughed at me yet.

I know most Tibetans aren’t
exactly feeling that sort of euphoria right now. But they should be
reminded how depressing it must have been for Mandela and others in the
ANC when leading Western nations, especially during the Cold War period,
did not support their cause. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher argued
that economic sanctions against the white apartheid regime would only
hurt the economic interests of poor black South Africans. Mandela
himself was condemned for being a Communist and a terrorist. Dick Cheney
insists to this day that Mandela was a terrorist. Though the
anti-apartheid cause had many supporters throughout the world, it took a
long time to change public opinion in the nations of the West (and
Japan) that did business with South Africa and regarded it as a bulwark
against Communist infiltration into Africa. When change eventually came,
after 27 years in prison for Mandela, it was arguably in large part a
result of his personal courage and uncompromising stick-to-it-ness that
forced the white South African government to release him and
subsequently abolish apartheid and hold multiracial elections.

In a previous post
I had theorized that the cry of Tibetan self-immolators in Tibet for
the “Dalai Lama to return to Tibet” was symbolically on the lines of the
anti-apartheid rallying-call “Free Nelson Mandela”. Both slogans are of
course a classic example of the use of symbolic language in politics.
Clearly no one from the ANC was saying that if Nelson Mandela were
released from prison then the South African issue would be resolved. The
rallying-call from Tibet is also nothing less than a demand for an end
to Chinese rule and the return of Tibet’s sovereign ruler to his
independent homeland. Sycophantic politicians in the exile Tibetan world
have tried to make this issue entirely about the Dalai Lama, in spite
of the fact that many of the self-immolators had made outright demands
for “Rangzen” along with their appeal for the “Dalai Lama to Return to
Tibet.”

The “monarch-in-exile” or the “monarch-in-captivity” is a
powerful archetypal symbol of “the lost freedom” of a people or a
nation. You had Richard I in captivity in Austria represented (somewhat
inaccurately) in popular English history as “the good king who would one
day return and put things right.” Jacobites in Scotland had their “King
across the Water” (James II) romanticized in the historical novels of
Walter Scott. In fantasy fiction you have the The Return of the King, the concluding volume of J.R.R. Tolkien’s great fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, where Aragon the exiled “heir of Isuldur” regains his throne and frees the people of the Middle Earth.

The
message “Free Nelson Mandela” was in the eighties effectively spread
world-wide not only in protest chants and posters but also in the songs
of African singers and songwriters as Johnny Clegg, Hugh Masekela,
Brenda Fassie and Majek Fashek. The English musician Jerry Dammers wrote
“Free Nelson Mandela” in 1984 which performed by his band “The
Specials” reached the top ten of the UK charts and became very popular
in Africa. Amy Winehouse sang it at Mandela’s 90th birthday
celebrations.

The other day listening to NPR in my car I heard
this catchy tune “Bring Him Back Home” by South African jazz trumpeter,
composer and singer, Hugh Masekela. It seemed to me that the song echoed
the pleas from Tibet for the Dalai Lama to return home.

Bring back Nelson Mandela.Bring him back home, to Soweto.I want to see him walkingdown the streets in South Africa – Tomorrow.